Uncle Sam Abroad by J E Conner

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Title: Uncle Sam Abroad

Author: J. E. Conner

Illustrator: Clyde J. Newman

Release Date: December 9, 2016 [EBook #53701]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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Transcriber Notes

Obvious typos corrected. Inconsistencies in punctuation kept as in

original.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation made consistent, e.g.:

handbook, shipboard, to-day, chargé(s) d’affaires.

Spelling of Quebec and Colombia made consistent, but otherwise

spellings of city and country names left as printed in the original.

Unclear name suffix in the original was confirmed as Jacob Meyer

Jr. elsewhere.

Page number in Table of Contents for Lecture III—Consular

Service—Duties changed to 83 to match actual start of
chapter.

The Diplomatic Service and Consular Service tables in the

Appendix have footnotes that are referenced in multiple entries
across the original pages in the text. Rather than retain multiple
footnotes with identical content, multiple anchors in the text may
refer to a single note.

P. 208 in the original indicates a footnote * that has no

corresponding anchor on that page, so it does not appear here.

The column headers with vertical text in the Synopsis of

Commercial Treaties table on pp. 212-213 have been moved
to a Key.

The Synopsis of Commercial Treaties table uses Unicode

characters dagger (U+2020) and double dagger (U+2021). If
the device font does not support these characters, † and ‡, they
may not appear correctly.

Indent of Lethbridge, Alberta in table on p. 226 made to match

surrounding entries since it falls in alphabetical order of those.

If the device allows, some full page images can be clicked on to

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cover

UNCLE SAM ABROAD.

Frontispiece - Uncle Sam carrying suitcase

title page

Uncle Sam
Abroad
By J. E. Conner

Illustrated by
Clyde J. Newman

Chicago and New York

Rand, McNally & Company

Copyright, 1900, by J. E. Conner.

CONTENTS.

The Professor Has an Idea
Page 7

Lecture I—The State Department
11

Lecture II—Consular Service—Officers
43

Lecture III—Consular Service—Duties
83

Lecture IV—Diplomatic Service
121

Lecture V—Uncle Sam and Expansion
159

Appendix
197

Uncle Sam profile

UNCLE SAM ABROAD.

I

The Professor Has An Idea.

t is the opinion of Professor Loyal of the University of ---- that the average American,

to put it bluntly, knows little or nothing about Uncle Sam’s foreign service.

He is also of the opinion that the time is at hand when the aforesaid average American

must know more about it, owing to the growth in importance of our foreign relations,
both politically and commercially.

Now if the good Professor could only work miracles he would take the dry details

which he has in mind upon this subject, and make them as interesting as fiction. Instead,
however, he chose a method to which he was more accustomed, the “university
extension” plan, aiming primarily to stimulate interest in his subject, and secondarily, in
some small measure to gratify it.

The reader is indebted to the notes of a shorthand reporter who happened to hear the

entire course, both for the text here given and for the illustrations with which it is adorned.
If he thinks that the latter are not always in harmony with the text he must remember that
the Professor and the Scribe did not see things from the same standpoint. Moreover he
must not hold the Professor too strictly to account for his language, for it is not to be
wondered at if he occasionally forgets himself and uses large words, which might be
considered out of place in a popular lecture; and again, in his effort to impart life and
present-day interest to his subject he at times introduces a levity which he hopes will not
too seriously offend the sober-minded, or make them distrust his statements of fact.

On the evening of the first lecture the speaker, having been presented with the usual

complimentary remarks, first spoke briefly in explanation of the nature of the course and
of such courses in general. He mentioned among other matters that syllabi or leaflets
containing outlines of the lectures, together with copies of the “Diplomatic and Consular
Register,” would be distributed to all in attendance. He also announced that opportunity
would be given at the close of each lecture for questions from the audience, and he
promised to attempt to answer the same. Then he turned to the subject of the evening.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT.

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The Scribe
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LECTURE I - THE STATE DEPARTMENT.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

What is the attitude of Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia or the United States

upon this or that question?

Such a query you often hear, and perhaps you stop to wonder how it is when the

collective opinion of any one country cannot be known in a short time, that there can be
such a thing as a German attitude, an English or an American attitude, or who has a right
to determine upon this or that as our attitude.

Well, it is evident that in domestic affairs, that is to say in national affairs, we as a

people can take time to deliberate and choose our path; and it is just as evident that in
international affairs we cannot always do so. “It is the unexpected that happens”, and we
must have some means of meeting emergencies that will not wait. Hence a free people is
least free, theoretically, when it has to do with the claims of treaties and international law,
for it cannot take time to consider and decide upon all the facts; nay, even legislatures
may interfere seriously with the proper discharge of such duties; so that in actual practice,
even the most democratic nations have found it best to entrust the management of foreign
affairs, or in other words, the preservation of their national equilibrium, to a Premier,
Chancellor or Foreign Secretary, who is generally the ablest statesman that the country
can afford.

This officer, with slightly differing functions, is known in our country as the Secretary of

State, and he presides over the State Department. Probably there is no office under our
Constitution that requires greater sagacity, greater breadth of intellectual grasp and
practical training than this one of Secretary of State, and the fact that it has been held by
such men as Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, James Madison, James Monroe, John
Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, William H. Seward and
James G. Blaine is sufficient evidence of its importance.

It was intended at first that the cabinet officers should be as nearly equal as possible,

and the salaries were fixed and remain the same to this day; but in the nature of the case
they could not remain of equal importance, for the Department of State is more intimately
associated with the President than any other. Washington would not allow foreign
ministers to address him—they must reach him properly through the State Department,—
hence, if for no other reason, it is easy to see how the Secretary of State assumed an
official dignity that does not belong to the other cabinet officers.

Let us see how he stands related to the general government. Suppose we assume the

attitude of an intelligent foreigner, looking at the “Great Republic” from the outside, and
trying to discover into whose hands the logical working out of the Constitution has placed
the real power.

It has been said[1] that we will at length discover that in all ordinary times of peace the

government is practically in the hands of six men, namely,—

the President and two men whom he appoints—
the Secretary of State, and
the Secretary of the Treasury;
the Speaker and two men whom he appoints—
the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and
the Chairman of the Committee of Appropriations.
Of these six, one-half are concerned with the finances of the government; and of the

other half, one is the Chief Executive, another may be called the chief legislative factor,
while the third is our official representative to the rest of the world. This practical division
of the functions of government does not seem to agree very well with the more theoretical
division into legislative, executive and judicial. In other words, finance has assumed an
importance it was not intended to have, just as was observed concerning the Secretary of
State.

It may seem rather strange to speak of one of our officials as the chief social

functionary in our governmental machinery, but we have such a one, and he is no other
than the Secretary of State. The office of functionary host for the government might be
supposed to belong naturally to the President, who is spared this duty, however, owing to

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the multiplicity of others that are unavoidable. Consequently the Secretary of State,
because of the breadth of the field of his operations, bringing him into touch with
representatives of other nations as well as the principal statesmen of our own, and
because, moreover, diplomacy’s natural atmosphere has always been that of society,
must “keep open house”, as it were, for the Republic. This alone would be a sufficient
burden for any one man, but it is expected that the Assistant Secretaries of State shall
share it with him. Thus our Secretary maintains the only semblance of a court that will be
tolerated by our “fierce democracie”, and even for this we do not contribute a cent of
support, though around it and through it operate vast interests, both national and
international. It is a manifest injustice to these officials that we do not provide for such
legitimate expenses as must necessarily occur on these semi-official, semi-social
occasions.

Now let us see what is the scope of the State Department, for it is much more than a

foreign office, though that is its principle function. It embraces the duties which in other
countries are given to the Keeper of the Seal, the Minister of Justice, etc., such as—

(1) keeping, promulgating and publishing the laws,
(2) custody of the Great Seal,
(3) preservation of the Government Archives, and
(4) charge of all official relations between the general Government and the several
States.
Its scope is more particularly indicated by the bureaus into which it is divided, namely,

—

the Bureau of Indexes and Archives;
the Bureau of Accounts of the State Department;
the Bureau of Rolls and Library;
the Bureau of Appointments;
the Bureau of Statistics, or Foreign Commerce;
the Consular Bureau;
the Diplomatic Bureau.
Each of these bureaus is presided over by a chief, and at the head of them all is the

chief clerk, who is “the executive officer of the Department of State under the direction of
the Secretary.”

The Bureau of Indexes and Archives is a sort of postoffice and recorder’s office

combined, for it receives the incoming mail, opens it and classifies it as either diplomatic,
consular or miscellaneous, then indexes it so that if necessary it can be readily traced, and
then turns over to the Chief Clerk the diplomatic correspondence and the more important
consular and miscellaneous correspondence. This the Chief Clerk reads, and the most
important is submitted to the Assistant Secretaries of State, while the remainder is turned
over to the various bureaus for their attention. Likewise after the Secretary and his
Assistants have signified the replies which are to be made to the most important of the
mail and have examined and signed the same, it is collected from all the bureaus, and the
out-going mail is indexed in another set of books.

The Bureau of Accounts of the State Department classifies its business as follows:
(1) International indemnities, or trust funds. If you are an American citizen living abroad

and suffer a loss of property unlawfully, you may expect the loss to be made good
through this Bureau of Accounts; that is unless you happen to be a missionary, for Uncle
Sam doesn’t always extend, or try to extend, to missionaries the same protection that is
enjoyed by other citizens living abroad.

(2) Diplomatic and consular accounts, i. e., the salaries paid to these officers, together

with all expenses incidental to the service.

(3) Accounts of the Department proper.
(4) Passports. If you wish to secure passports before going abroad, it must be done

through the State Department, as they are issued nowhere else in the United States.

The telegraphic correspondence of the State Department, mostly in cipher, is

conducted by this bureau.

The Bureau of Rolls and Library has the custody of the laws and treaties of the United

States, together with the Revolutionary archives, etc. Its chief business is the “publication

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